An intimate portrait of five inextricably linked lives, spanning one calendar year at Kew Gardens – an exquisite, strange and beautiful debut for fans of Alice Sebold, Curtis Sittenfeld, Barbara Kingsolver and Audrey NiffeneggerAfter the sudden death of his wife, Audrey, Jonah sits on a bench in Kew Gardens, trying to reassemble the shattered pieces of his life. Chloe, shaven-headed and abrasive, finds solace in the origami she meticulously folds. But when she meets Jonah, her carefully constructed defences threaten to fall. Milly, a child quick to laugh, freely roams Kew, finding beauty everywhere she goes. But where is her mother and where does she go when the gardens are closed? Harry's purpose is to save plants from extinction. Quiet and enigmatic, he longs for something – or someone – who will root him more firmly to the earth. Audrey links these strangers together. As the...

When you are a female born into a poor Indian family, the odds are already stacked greatly against you.Saved by her grandmother from being killed at birth for being a female and abandoned by her mother at a young age, Shilpa Raj faces the formidable constraints placed on her by her family, and the barbs of village elders bound by hundreds of years of oppressive practices and customs that subjugate women in rural India.At the age of four, Shilpa's life veers drastically from that of her family's when she gets selected to study in a free boarding school run by a philanthropist for children from underprivileged homes. While her distraught mother fights to not give the care of her child up to a total stranger, her father, then a poor, illiterate bootlegger, stubbornly stands by his decision despite being warned by the elders in the village to not trust the generous ways of the rich. And thus begins Shilpa's story, both within and outside her family to which she is bound by blood but...

The first and possibly only book to be reviewed favorably in both The Women's Review of Books and Hustler, Sex Work popularized the term "sex work" to describe the occupations of street prostitutes, exotic dancers, nude models, escorts, porn actresses, and workers in massage parlors, and so changed the way we talk about sex and money. Features the original stories of women in the life, including writings by Sapphire, Nina Hartley, and Joan Nestle. Updated for the Second Edition: * Sex Workers' response to AIDS * Latest information on the legal status of sex work in the United States, Europe, and Asia * Growth of the international prostitutes' rights movement * Bibliography, revised to reflect a decades’ worth of writing and publishing on sex work * Resources, including activist organizations and publications—many just a Web click away

With wedding bells ringing and a killer stalking from the shadows, a former British spy makes up for lost time with the one that got away in this thrilling Regency romance from the author of Spy Fall and License to Wed. Emilia St. George is moments away from marrying the admired grandson of a duke when the man who once jilted her decides to kidnap her at the altar. It's the second time in five years Hamilton Sparrow has ruined her wedding day, and Emilia isn't about to forgive him. The mere sight of her ex-fiancé revives painful memories—and, most regrettably, aching desires that refuse to be ignored. Scanning the guests at Emilia's wedding, Sparrow spots a familiar face: an assassin he recognizes from his days as a spy in France. Whisking Emilia away, he's pleasantly surprised by her newly formed curves. Could this be the same flame-haired slip of a girl once promised to Sparrow? And does the fop she still insists on...